Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-partial-differential-equations-for-pure-and-applied-mathematicians-and-calculus-of-variations-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2007/a/2/solution
Past exam of the partial differential equations for pure and applied mathematicians and calculus of variations course of the University of Oxford 2007 A 2 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
The first weak derivative is characterized by for every . The fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations in the locally integrable form says that a function pairing to zero with every such test is zero almost everywhere. Applied to the difference of two candidate derivatives, it proves uniqueness. The Sobolev space consists of with all first weak derivatives in , with normFor the one-dimensional tent, integration by parts on each side of one has cancelling junction terms because the function is continuous. Thus on and on , almost everywhere. Both it and its derivative are bounded, so it belongs to every stated Sobolev space; its displayed norm to the power is .
For in the punctured ball, ordinary differentiation givesThe function is bounded and , so polar integration gives finite derivative norms when , namely . To verify these are weak derivatives across the origin, integrate by parts outside a ball of radius against a compactly supported smooth test. The inner boundary term is at most a fixed constant times , since is bounded. It tends to zero for . The volume terms converge by local integrability of the displayed derivative. Thus for with exactly these derivatives. Its value at the origin can be chosen arbitrarily.
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